Lewis Hamilton lost the Monaco F1 Grand Prix after an extraordinary decision by his Mercedes team to bring him into the pits late in the race, handing victory to his arch rival and team-mate, Nico Rosberg.
It meant that the German completed a hat-trick of straight wins at the famous street circuit, the fourth man to do so after Graham Hill, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. He also halved Hamilton’s world championship lead from 20 points to 10, because the British driver ended up third behind Sebastian Vettel.
The team apologized immediately after the race when their head of motorsport, Toto Wolff said: “There is nothing else to do than apologise to Lewis. It was a misjudgment in the heat of the moment.”
Speaking to the driver he said: “It was all our mistake today Lewis, a split second decision and the timing didn’t work. We take this one on our shoulders.”
A disconsolate looking Hamilton said: “It’s not the easiest of races. But we win and lose together. Congratulations to Nico and Sebastian. We will sit down together afterwards and think of ways we can improve.”
It looked the easiest of races, for Hamilton looked certain to lead the race from start to finish until a crash between Max Verstappen’s Toro Rosso and Romain Grosjean of Lotus. This led to the introduction of the safety car and for some reason Mercedes decided to pit Hamilton for a second time, while leaving Rosberg out.
Hamilton’s lead was more than 20 seconds at the time and Mercedes clearly thought that he would rejoin the race still in front. But that was not the case and when the safety car came in it was Rosberg who led ahead of Vettel, with Hamilton third.
Hamilton was on fresh super-soft tyres while the other two had worn softs. But he said immediately: “I’ve lost this race, haven’t I?”
Hamilton got off to a good start, which was more than matched by Rosberg but not enough to get past the world champion. Vettel also hung on to third and Daniil Kvyat’s pass on his Red Bull colleague Daniel Ricciardo to take fourth was the only change among the leaders on the opening lap.
Hamilton, though, was on top of his game and by the end of the second lap he had already pulled out a lead of 1.5 seconds. After 10 laps it was 3.5 seconds, but just after that he was told his brakes were on the warm side.
Overtaking may be difficult here but no one told 17-year-old Verstappen. He bumped into the back of Pastor Maldonado and then passed him with an eye-catching move, notwithstanding the fact that the Venezuelan pitted with brake problems and ultimately pulled out of the race, his fifth retirement in six races.
Verstappen had the drive of the day before he crashed. He was let down by an awful pit stop, which went on for 31 seconds and dropped him from eighth to 13th.
But he clawed his way back into the points again before crashing into the back of Grosjean on the 64th lap. It was the crash that brought out the safety car and changed the course of the race.
Guardian Services
